School Notes: Yale Law School
November/December 2013

Two alumni to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

President Bill Clinton ’73JD and Patricia Wald ’51LLB are among the 16 honorees who will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom later this year. The medal is the nation’s highest honor, presented to individuals who have made meritorious contributions to the security of national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors. 

Clinton was governor and attorney general of Arkansas before he was elected the 42nd president of the United States. Following his second term in office, he established the Clinton Foundation to improve global health, strengthen economies, promote health and wellness, and protect the environment. In 2010 he formed the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund with President George W. Bush ’68. 

Patricia Wald is one of the most respected appellate judges of her generation. She graduated from Yale Law School as one of only 11 women in her class, was the first woman appointed to the US Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, and served as chief judge from 1986 to 1991. She later served on the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Wald currently serves on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. 

Yale report blames Haitian cholera epidemic on UN

A report released by researchers at Yale found that the United Nations inadvertently caused a deadly cholera epidemic in Haiti, and that the UN has legal and moral obligations to remedy this harm. Peacekeeping without Accountability was issued by the Transnational Development Clinic and the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale Law School and Yale School of Public Health, in collaboration with the Haitian Environmental Law Association. The report incorporates consultations with victims of the epidemic, human-rights advocates, attorneys, journalists, aid workers, medical doctors, and government agency officials with first-hand knowledge of the epidemic. It confirms accounts that UN peacekeepers inadvertently but negligently brought cholera into Haiti, and provides a comprehensive set of recommendations outlining steps the UN and other principal actors in Haiti should take to address the cholera epidemic. It also emphasizes that the prevention of similar harms in the future requires that the UN commit to reforming the waste management practices of its peacekeepers and complying with its contractual and international law obligations. The report is available at www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Clinics/Haiti_TDC_Final_
Report.pdf.